"Humans now have to make more decisions in a single day than a caveman did in a lifetime." -- Dr. Aric Sigman, The Explosion of Choice: Tyranny or Freedom
The Explosion of Choice: Tyranny or Freedom report concludes that consumers are being overwhelmed by the number of product choices available to them in the typical supermarket.
The report's author and psychologist, Dr. Aric Sigman, told a UK newspaper, "I wanted to see whether Western assumptions regarding greater choice bringing greater happiness was true. They aren't."
Dr. Sigman's research noted that the average UK supermarket carried 87 different kinds of cereal, 83 shampoos, 68 shower gels, and 42 deodorants.
As consumers, we have gained more selection and lower prices, but we have also lost so much from the experience of shopping and consuming.
Most of it is all beige and borning.
Most of it is all unstimulating and unremarkable.
Even worse, many of us can't tell one store from another. We can't tell the difference between this soap or that soap. We can't tell the difference between value or cost. Frankly, many of us don't care.
However, for those that do care, never has there been a better time to introduce new products, new services, new ideas.
For those that do care, never has there been a better time execute in bold colors and perform in the phenomenal.
To introduce new products, new services, new ideas is a choice.
New products, new services, new ideas which look at a market, identify an unmet or poorly met need then matching a product or service to that need which produces a profit or sustainable funding.
Technology has reduced the barrier of entry, and you can now go directly to your target consumer.
Seth Godin points out, "You don't have to settle. It's a choice you get to make every day."
Every day. Seem like a lot of work. But it takes a lot of work to introduce new products, new services, new ideas.
It takes a lot of work not to settle.
You can improve the odds of success by choosing to form habits, prioritizing time, and setting goals.
Executing a habit checklist will get you there.
Getting you to the place where you are bringing a remarkable new product, new service, or new idea to the marketplace.
Something so remarkable the person who selects your good or service 'remarks' about the outcome.
A good or service that is more than merely being different.
You can bring forth something that people choose to talk about, regardless of what the other 87 different kinds of cereal, 83 shampoos, 68 shower gels, and 42 deodorants are offering in the supermarket.
"Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?"
Famously this was what Steve Jobs said to Pepsi executive John Sculley to lure him to Apple.
Sculley had a choice.
You have a choice.
Sculley chose Apple.
Consider we spend about 80,000 hours of our life at work.
Yet, the work that most of us commit our lives to isn't the kind of work that is actually remarkable. It's more sugar water and less world-changing.
I am not saying you need to run a multinational corporation, but there is something you can bring to the world that simply benefits your neighbors.
You have a choice to introduce a new product, new service, or new idea that moves your day from what I am doing to why I am doing it.
- Marc
Marc A. Ross is the founder of Cacacal Global and specializes in political communications for global business working at the intersection of globalization, disruption, and politics.
Choice
